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BY
1889
The first serious attempts to carry further the unfinished work of Archimedes, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, of
Aristotle and of Galen, naturally enough arose among the astronomers and the physicians. For the imperious
necessity of seeking some remedy for the physical ills of life had insured the preservation of more or less of
the wisdom of Hippocrates and his successors, and, by a happy conjunction of circumstances, the Jewish and
the Arabian physicians and philosophers escaped many of the influences which, at that time, blighted natural
knowledge in the Christian world. On the other hand, the superstitious hopes and fears which afforded
countenance to astrology and to alchemy also sheltered astronomy and the germs of chemistry. Whether for
this, or for some better reason, the founders of the schools of the Middle Ages included astronomy, along with
geometry, arithmetic, and music, as one of the four branches of advanced education; and, in this respect, it is
only just to them to observe that they were far in advance of those who sit in their seats. The school men
considered no one to be properly educated unless he were acquainted with, at any rate, one branch of physical
science. We have not, even yet, reached that stage of enlightenment.
Francis Bacon.
In our own country, Francis Bacon, had essayed to sum up the past of physical science, and to indicate the
path which it must follow if its great destinies were to be fulfilled. And though the attempt was just such a
magnificent failure as might have been expected from a man of great endowments, who was so singularly
devoid of scientific insight that he could not understand the value of the work already achieved by the true
instaurators of physical science; yet the majestic eloquence and the fervid vaticinations of one who was
conspicuous alike by the greatness of his rise and the depth of his fall, drew the attention of all the world to
the 'new birth of Time.'
Even the eloquent advocacy of the Chancellor brought no unmixed good to physical science. It was natural
enough that the man who, in his better moments, took 'all knowledge for his patrimony,' but, in his worse, sold
that birthright for the mess of pottage of Court favor and professional success, for pomp and show, should be
led to attach an undue value to the practical advantages which he foresaw, as Roger Bacon and, indeed,
Hobbes.
Descartes.
Bacon's younger contemporary, Hobbes, casting aside the prudent reserve of his predecessor in regard to those
matters about which the Crown or the Church might have something to say, extended scientific methods of
inquiry to the phenomena of mind and the problems of social organisation; while, at the same time, he
indicated the boundary between the province of real, and that of imaginary, knowledge. The 'Principles of
Philosophy' and the 'Leviathan' embody a coherent system of purely scientific thought in language which is a
model of clear and vigorous English style. At the same time, in France, a man of far greater scientific capacity
than either Bacon or Hobbes, René Descartes, not only in his immortal 'Discours de la Méthode' and
elsewhere, went down to the foundations of scientific certainty, but, in his 'Principes de Philosophie,' indicated
where the goal of physical science really lay. However, Descartes was an eminent mathematician, and it
would seem that the bent of his mind led him to overestimate the value of deductive reasoning from general
principles, as much as Bacon had underestimated it. The progress of physical science has been effected neither
by Baconians nor by Cartesians, as such, but by men like Galileo and Harvey, Boyle and Newton, who would
have done their work just as well if neither Bacon nor Descartes had ever propounded their views respecting
the manner in which scientific investigation should be pursued.
The middle of the eighteenth century is illustrated by a host of great names in science—English, French,
German, and Italian—especially in the fields of chemistry, geology, and biology; but this deepening and
broadening of natural knowledge produced next to no immediate practical benefits. Even if, at this time,
Francis Bacon could have returned to the scene of his greatness and of his littleness, he must have regarded
the philosophic world which praised and disregarded his precepts with great disfavor. If ghosts are consistent,
he would have said, 'These people are all wasting their time, just as Gilbert and Kepler and Galileo and my
worthy physician Harvey did in my day. Where are the fruits of the restoration of science which I promised?
This accumulation of bare knowledge is all very well, but cui bono? Not one of these people is doing what I
told him specially to do, and seeking that secret of the cause of forms which will enable men to deal, at will,
with matter, and superinduce new natures upon the old foundations.'
Nevertheless, that which is true of the infancy of physical science in the Greek world, that which is true of its
adolescence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, remains true of its riper age in these latter days of the
nineteenth century. The great steps in its progress have been made, are made, and will be made, by men who
seek knowledge simply because they crave for it. They have their weaknesses, their follies, their vanities, and
their rivalries, like the rest of the world; but whatever by-ends may mar their dignity and impede their
usefulness, this chief end redeems them.[B] Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever
their powers, in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was wanting. Men of moderate capacity have
done great things because it animated them; and men of great natural gifts have failed, absolutely or relatively,
because they lacked this one thing needful.
Nor is their any lack either of guidance, or of aids to ignorance. By a happy chance, the first edition of
Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences' was published in 1837, and it affords a very useful view of the
state of things at the commencement of the Victorian epoch. As to subsequent events, there are numerous
excellent summaries of the progress of various branches of science, especially up to 1881, which was the
jubilee year of the British Association.[D] And, with respect to the biological sciences, with some parts of
which my studies have familiarised me, my personal experience nearly coincides with the preceding
half-century. I may hope, therefore, that my chance of escaping serious errors is as good as that of anyone
else, who might have been persuaded to undertake the somewhat perilous enterprise in which I find myself
engaged.
There is yet another prefatory remark which it seems desirable I should make. It is that I think it proper to
confine myself to the work done, without saying anything about the doers of it. Meddling with questions of
merit and priority is a thorny business at the best of times, and unless in case of necessity, altogether
undesirable when one is dealing with contemporaries. No such necessity lies upon me, and I shall, therefore,
mention no names of living men, lest, perchance, I should incur the reproof which the Israelites, who
struggled with one another in the field, addressed to Moses—'Who made thee a prince and a judge over us.'
It is based on postulates
All physical science starts from certain postulates. One of them is the objective existence of a material world.
It is assumed that the phenomena which are comprehended under this name have a 'substratum' of extended,
impenetrable, mobile substance, which exhibits the quality known as inertia, and is termed matter.[E] Another
postulate is the universality of the law of causation; that nothing happens without a cause (that is, a necessary
precedent condition), and that the state of the physical universe, at any given moment, is the consequence of
its state at any preceding moment. Another is that any of the rules, or so-called 'laws of nature,' by which the
relation of phenomena is truly defined, is true for all time. The validity of these postulates is a problem of
metaphysics; they are neither self-evident nor are they, strictly speaking, demonstrable. The justification of
their employment, as axioms of physical philosophy, lies in the circumstance that expectations logically based
upon them are verified, or, at any rate, not contradicted, whenever they can be tested by experience.
It sounds paradoxical to say that the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the
help of scientific errors. But the subject-matter of physical science is furnished by observation, which cannot
extend beyond the limits of our faculties; while, even within those limits, we cannot be certain that any
observation is absolutely exact and exhaustive. Hence it follows that any given generalisation from
observation may be true, within the limits of our powers of observation at a given time, and yet turn out to be
untrue, when those powers of observation are directly or indirectly enlarged. Or, to put the matter in another
way, a doctrine which is untrue absolutely, may, to a very great extent, be susceptible of an interpretation in
accordance with the truth. At a certain period in the history of astronomical science, the assumption that the
planets move in circles was true enough to serve the purpose of correlating such observations as were then
possible; after Kepler, the assumption that they move in ellipses became true enough in regard to the state of
observational astronomy at that time. We say still that the orbits of the planets are ellipses, because, for all
ordinary purposes, that is a sufficiently near approximation to the truth; but, as a matter of fact, the centre of
gravity of a planet describes neither an ellipse or any other simple curve, but an immensely complicated
undulating line. It may fairly be doubted whether any generalisation, or hypothesis, based upon physical data
is absolutely true, in the sense that a mathematical proposition is so; but, if its errors can become apparent
only outside the limits of practicable observation, it may be just as usefully adopted for one of the symbols of
that algebra by which we interpret nature, as if it were absolutely true.
The development of every branch of physical knowledge presents three stages which, in their logical relation,
are successive. The first is the determination of the sensible character and order of the phenomena. This is
Natural History, in the original sense of the term, and here nothing but observation and experiment avail us.
The second is the determination of the constant relations of the phenomena thus defined, and their expression
in rules or laws. The third is the explication of these particular laws by deduction from the most general laws
of matter and motion. The last two stages constitute Natural Philosophy in its original sense. In this region,
the invention of verifiable hypotheses is not only permissible, but is one of the conditions of progress.
The three great achievements. Doctrines of (1) molecular constitution of matter, (2) conservation of energy,
(3) evolution.
I have said that our epoch can produce achievements in physical science of greater moment than any other has
to show, advisedly; and I think that there are three great products of our time which justify the assertion. One
of these is that doctrine concerning the constitution of matter which, for want of a better name, I will call
'molecular;' the second is the doctrine of conservation of energy; the third is the doctrine of evolution. Each of
these was foreshadowed, more or less distinctly, in former periods of the history of science; and, so far is
either from being the outcome of purely inductive reasoning, that it would be hard to overrate the influence of
metaphysical, and even of theological, considerations upon the development of all three. The peculiar merit of
our epoch is that it has shown how these hypotheses connect a vast number of seemingly independent partial
generalisations; that it has given them that precision of expression which is necessary for their exact
verification; and that it has practically proved their value as guides to the discovery of new truth. All three
doctrines are intimately connected, and each is applicable to the whole physical cosmos. But, as might have
been expected from the nature of the case, the first two grew, mainly, out of the consideration of
physico-chemical phenomena; while the third, in great measure, owes its rehabilitation, if not its origin, to the
study of biological phenomena.
The laws of motion of visible and tangible, or molar, matter had been worked out to a great degree of
refinement and embodied in the branches of science known as Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Pneumatics.
These laws had been shown to hold good, so far as they could be checked by observation and experiment,
throughout the universe, on the assumption that all such masses of matter possessed inertia and were
susceptible of acquiring motion, in two ways, firstly by impact, or impulse from without; and, secondly, by
the operation of certain hypothetical causes of motion termed 'forces,' which were usually supposed to be
resident in the particles of the masses themselves, and to operate at a distance, in such a way as to tend to
draw any two such masses together, or to separate them more widely.
In the meanwhile, the gradual reception of the undulatory theory of light necessitated the assumption of the
existence of an 'ether' filling all space. But whether this ether was to be regarded as a strictly material and
continuous substance was an undecided point, and hence the revived atomism, escaped strangling in its birth.
For it is clear, that if the ether is admitted to be a continuous material substance, Democritic atomism is at an
end and Cartesian continuity takes its place.
The doctrine of specific heat originated in the eighteenth century. It means that the same mass of a body,
under the same circumstances, always requires the same quantity of heat to raise it to a given temperature, but
that equal masses of different bodies require different quantities. Ultimately, it was found that the quantities of
heat required to raise equal masses of the more perfect gases, through equal ranges of temperature, were
inversely proportional to their combining weights. Thus a definite relation was established between the
hypothetical units and heat. The phenomena of electrolytic decomposition showed that there was a like close
relation between these units and electricity. The quantity of electricity generated by the combination of any
two units is sufficient to separate any other two which are susceptible of such decomposition. The phenomena
of isomorphism showed a relation between the units and crystalline forms; certain units are thus able to
replace others in a crystalline body without altering its form, and others are not.
Again, the laws of the effect of pressure and heat on gaseous bodies, the fact that they combine in definite
proportions by volume, and that such proportion bears a simple relation to their combining weights, all
It is largely because the chemical theory and practice of our epoch have passed into this deductive and
synthetic stage, that they are entitled to the name of the 'New Chemistry' which they commonly receive. But
this new chemistry has grown up by the help of hypotheses, such as those of Dalton and of Avogadro, and that
singular conception of 'bonds' invented to colligate the facts of 'valency' or 'atomicity,' the first of which took
some time to make its way; while the second fell into oblivion, for many years after it was propounded, for
lack of empirical justification. As for the third, it may be doubted if anyone regards it as more than a
temporary contrivance.
But some of these hypotheses have done yet further service. Combining them with the mechanical theory of
heat and the doctrine of the conservation of energy, which are also products of our time, physicists have
arrived at an entirely new conception of the nature of gaseous bodies and of the relation of the
physico-chemical units of matter to the different forms of energy. The conduct of gases under varying
pressure and temperature, their diffusibility, their relation to radiant heat and to light, the evolution of heat
In the meanwhile, the primitive atomic theory, which has served as the scaffolding for the edifice of modern
physics and chemistry, has been quietly dismissed. I cannot discover that any contemporary physicist or
chemist believes in the real indivisibility of atoms, or in an interatomic matterless vacuum. 'Atoms' appear to
be used as mere names for physico-chemical units which have not yet been subdivided, and 'molecules' for
physico-chemical units which are aggregates of the former. And these individualised particles are supposed to
move in an endless ocean of a vastly more subtle matter—the ether. If this ether is a continuous substance,
therefore, we have got back from the hypothesis of Dalton to that of Descartes. But there is much reason to
believe that science is going to make a still further journey, and, in form, if not altogether in substance, to
return to the point of view of Aristotle.
Elementary bodies
The greater number of the so-called 'elementary' bodies, now known, had been discovered before the
commencement of our epoch; and it had become apparent that they were by no means equally similar or
dissimilar, but that some of them, at any rate, constituted groups, the several members of which were as much
like one another as they were unlike the rest. Chlorine, iodine, bromine, and fluorine thus formed a very
distinct group; sulphur and selenium another; boron and silicon another; potassium, sodium, and lithium
another; and so on. In some cases, the atomic weights of such allied bodies were nearly the same, or could be
arranged in series, with like differences between the several terms. In fact, the elements afforded indications
that they were susceptible of a classification in natural groups, such as those into which animals and plants
fall.
a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, &c.,
but
a, b, c, d, A, B, C, D, α, β, γ, δ, &c.;
so that it is said to express a periodic law of recurrent similarities. Or the relation may be expressed in another
way. In each section of the series, the atomic weight is greater than in the preceding section, so that if w is the
atomic weight of any element in the first segment, w+x will represent the atomic weight of any element in the
next, and w+x+y the atomic weight of any element in the next, and so on. Therefore the sections may be
represented as parallel series, the corresponding terms of which have analogous properties; each successive
series starting with a body the atomic weight of which is greater than that of any in the preceding series, in the
following fashion:
In fact, the so-called 'vortex-ring' hypothesis is a very serious and remarkable attempt to deal with material
units from a point of view which is consistent with the doctrine of evolution. It supposes the ether to be a
uniform substance, and that the 'elementary' units are, broadly speaking, permanent whirlpools, or vortices, of
this ether, the properties of which depend on their actual and potential modes of motion. It is curious and
highly interesting to remark that this hypothesis reminds us not only of the speculations of Descartes, but of
those of Aristotle. The resemblance of the 'vortex-rings' to the 'tourbillons' of Descartes is little more than
nominal; but the correspondence between the modern and the ancient notion of a distinction between primary
and derivative matter is, to a certain extent, real. For this ethereal 'Urstoff' of the modern corresponds very
closely with the πρωτη υλη of Aristotle, the materia prima of his mediæval
followers; while matter, differentiated into our elements, is the equivalent of the first stage of progress
towards the εσχατη υλη, or finished matter, of the
ancient philosophy.
If the material units of the existing order of nature are specialised portions of a relatively homogeneous
materia prima—which were originated under conditions that have long ceased to exist and which
remain unchanged and unchangeable under all conditions, whether natural or artificial, hitherto known to
us—it follows that the speculation that they may be indefinitely altered, or that new units may be
generated under conditions yet to be discovered, is perfectly legitimate. Theoretically, at any rate, the
transmutability of the elements is a verifiable scientific hypothesis; and such inquiries as those which have
been set afoot, into the possible dissociative action of the great heat of the sun upon our elements, are not only
legitimate, but are likely to yield results which, whether affirmative or negative, will be of great importance.
The idea that atoms are absolutely ingenerable and immutable 'manufactured articles' stands on the same sort
of foundation as the idea that biological species are 'manufactured articles' stood thirty years ago; and the
supposed constancy of the elementary atoms, during the enormous lapse of time measured by the existence of
our universe, is of no more weight against the possibility of change in them, in the infinity of antecedent time,
than the constancy of species in Egypt, since the days of Rameses or Cheops, is evidence of their immutability
during all past epochs of the earth's history. It seems safe to prophesy that the hypothesis of the evolution of
the elements from a primitive matter will, in future, play no less a part in the history of science than the
atomic hypothesis, which, to begin with, had no greater, if so great, an empirical foundation.
Another important result of investigation, attained in the seventeenth century, was the proof and quantitative
estimation of physical inertia. In the old philosophy, a curious conjunction of ethical and physical prejudices
had led to the notion that there was something ethically bad and physically obstructive about matter. Aristotle
attributes all irregularities and apparent dysteleologies in nature to the disobedience, or sluggish yielding, of
matter to the shaping and guiding influence of those reasons and causes which were hypostatised in his ideal
'Forms.' In modern science, the conception of the inertia, or resistance to change, of matter is complex. In part,
it contains a corollary from the law of causation: A body cannot change its state in respect of rest or motion
without a sufficient cause. But, in part, it contains generalisations from experience. One of these is that there
is no such sufficient cause resident in any body, and that therefore it will rest, or continue in motion, so long
as no external cause of change acts upon it. The other is that the effect which the impact of a body in motion
produces upon the body on which it impinges depends, other things being alike, on the relation of a certain
It is a remarkable evidence of the greatness of the progress in this direction which has been effected in our
time, that even the second edition of the 'History of the Inductive Sciences,' which was published in 1846,
contains no allusion either to the general view of the 'Correlation of Forces' published in England in 1842, or
to the publication in 1843 of the first of the series of experiments by which the mechanical equivalent of heat
That kinetic energy appears to be imparted by impact is a fact of daily and hourly experience: we see bodies
set in motion by bodies, already in motion, which seem to come in contact with them. It is a truth which could
have been learned by nothing but experience, and which cannot be explained, but must be taken as an ultimate
fact about which, explicable or inexplicable, there can be no doubt. Strictly speaking, we have no direct
apprehension of any other cause of motion. But experience furnishes innumerable examples of the production
of kinetic energy in a body previously at rest, when no impact is discernible as the cause of that energy. In all
such cases, the presence of a second body is a necessary condition; and the amount of kinetic energy, which
its presence enables the first to gain, is strictly dependent on the relative positions of the two. Hence the
phrase energy of position, which is frequently used as equivalent to potential energy. If a stone is picked up
and held, say, six feet above the ground, it has potential energy, because, if let go, it will immediately begin to
move towards the earth; and this energy may be said to be energy of position, because it depends upon the
relative position of the earth and the stone. The stone is solicited to move but cannot, so long as the muscular
strength of the holder prevents the solicitation from taking effect. The stone, therefore, has potential energy,
which becomes kinetic if it is let go, and the amount of that kinetic energy which will be developed before it
strikes the earth depends on its position—on the fact that it is, say, six feet off the earth, neither more
nor less. Moreover, it can be proved that the raiser of the stone had to exert as much energy in order to place it
in its position, as it will develop in falling. Hence the energy which was exerted, and apparently exhausted, in
raising the stone, is potentially in the stone, in its raised position, and will manifest itself when the stone is set
free. Thus the energy, withdrawn from the general stock to raise the stone, is returned when it falls, and there
is no change in the total amount. Energy, as a whole, is conserved.
Taking this as a very broad and general statement of the essential facts of the case, the raising of the stone is
intelligible enough, as a case of the communication of motion from one body to another. But the potential
energy of the raised stone is not so easily intelligible. To all appearance, there is nothing either pushing or
pulling it towards the earth, or the earth towards it; and yet it is quite certain that the stone tends to move
towards the earth and the earth towards the stone, in the way defined by the law of gravitation.
Another illustration may make the case plainer. The bob of a pendulum swings first to one side and then to the
other of the centre of the arc which it describes. Suppose it to have just reached the summit of its right-hand
half-swing. It is said that the 'attractive forces' of the bob for the earth, and of the earth for the bob, set the
former in motion; and as these 'forces' are continually in operation, they confer an accelerated velocity on the
bob; until, when it reaches the centre of its swing, it is, so to speak, fully charged with kinetic energy. If, at
this moment, the whole material universe, except the bob, were abolished, it would move for ever in the
direction of a tangent to the middle of the arc described. As a matter of fact, it is compelled to travel through
its left-hand half-swing, and thus virtually to go up hill. Consequently, the 'attractive forces' of the bob and the
earth are now acting against it, and constitute a resistance which the charge of kinetic energy has to overcome.
But, as this charge represents the operation of the attractive forces during the passage of the bob through the
right-hand half-swing down to the centre of the arc, so it must needs be used up by the passage of the bob
upwards from the centre of the arc to the summit of the left-hand half-swing. Hence, at this point, the bob
comes to a momentary rest. The last fraction of kinetic energy is just neutralised by the action of the attractive
forces, and the bob has only potential energy equal to that with which it started. So that the sum of the
phenomena may be stated thus: At the summit of either half-arc of its swing, the bob has a certain amount of
potential energy; as it descends it gradually exchanges this for kinetic energy, until at the centre it possesses
an equivalent amount of kinetic energy; from this point onwards, it gradually loses kinetic energy as it
ascends, until, at the summit of the other half-arc, it has acquired an exactly similar amount of potential
energy. Thus, on the whole transaction, nothing is either lost or gained; the quantity of energy is always the
same, but it passes from one form into the other.
To all appearance, the phenomena exhibited by the pendulum are not to be accounted for by impact: in fact, it
is usually assumed that corresponding phenomena would take place if the earth and the pendulum were
situated in an absolute vacuum, and at any conceivable distance from, one another. If this be so, it follows that
there must be two totally different kinds of causes of motion: the one impact—a vera causa, of which,
to all appearance, we have constant experience; the other, attractive or repulsive 'force'—a
metaphysical entity which is physically inconceivable. Newton expressly repudiated the notion of the
existence of attractive forces, in the sense in which that term is ordinarily understood; and he refused to put
forward any hypothesis as to the physical cause of the so-called 'attraction of gravitation.' As a general rule,
his successors have been content to accept the doctrine of attractive and repulsive forces, without troubling
themselves about the philosophical difficulties which it involves. But this has not always been the case; and
the attempt of Le Sage, in the last century, to show that the phenomena of attraction and repulsion are
susceptible of explanation by his hypothesis of bombardment by ultra-mundane particles, whether tenable or
not, has the great merit of being an attempt to get rid of the dual conception of the causes of motion which has
hitherto prevailed. On this hypothesis, the hammering of the ultra-mundane corpuscles on the bob confers its
kinetic energy, on the one hand, and takes it away on the other; and the state of potential energy means the
condition of the bob during the instant at which the energy, conferred by the hammering during the one
half-arc, has just been exhausted by the hammering during the other half-arc. It seems safe to look forward to
the time when the conception of attractive and repulsive forces, having served its purpose as a useful piece of
scientific scaffolding, will be replaced by the deduction of the phenomena known as attraction and repulsion,
from the general laws of motion.
The doctrine of the conservation of energy which I have endeavored to illustrate is thus defined by the late
Clerk Maxwell:
Hence, as the phenomena exhibited by living beings, in so far as they are material, are all molar or molecular
motions, these are included under the general law. A living body is a machine by which energy is transformed
in the same sense as a steam-engine is so, and all its movements, molar and molecular, are to be accounted for
by the energy which is supplied to it. The phenomena of consciousness which arise, along with certain
transformations of energy, cannot be interpolated in the series of these transformations, inasmuch as they are
not motions to which the doctrine of the conservation of energy applies. And, for the same reason, they do not
necessitate the using up of energy; a sensation has no mass and cannot be conceived to be susceptible of
movement. That a particular molecular motion does give rise to a state of consciousness is experimentally
certain; but the how and why of the process are just as inexplicable as in the case of the communication of
kinetic energy by impact.
When dealing with the doctrine of the ultimate constitution of matter, we found a certain resemblance
between the oldest speculations and the newest doctrines of physical philosophers. But there is no such
resemblance between the ancient and modern views of motion and its causes, except in so far as the
conception of attractive and repulsive forces may be regarded as the modified descendant of the Aristotelian
conception of forms. In fact, it is hardly too much to say that the essential and fundamental difference between
ancient and modern physical science lies in the ascertainment of the true laws of statics and dynamics in the
course of the last three centuries; and in the invention of mathematical methods of dealing with all the
consequences of these laws. The ultimate aim of modern physical science is the deduction of the phenomena
exhibited by material bodies from physico-mathematical first principles. Whether the human intellect is strong
enough to attain the goal set before it may be a question, but thither will it surely strive.
(3) Evolution.
The third great scientific event of our time, the rehabilitation of the doctrine of evolution, is part of the same
tendency of increasing knowledge to unify itself, which has led to the doctrine of the conservation of energy.
And this tendency, again, is mainly a product of the increasing strength conferred by physical investigation on
the belief in the universal validity of that orderly relation of facts, which we express by the so-called 'Laws of
Nature.'
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, De Maillet made the first serious attempt to apply the doctrine to
the living world. In the latter part of it, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Treviranus, and Lamarck took up the work
more vigorously and with better qualifications. The question of special creation, or evolution, lay at the
bottom of the fierce disputes which broke out in the French Academy between Cuvier and St.-Hilaire; and, for
a time, the supporters of biological evolution were silenced, if not answered, by the alliance of the greatest
naturalist of the age with their ecclesiastical opponents. Catastrophism, a short-sighted teleology, and a still
more short-sighted orthodoxy, joined forces to crush evolution.
Lyell and Poulett Scrope, in this country, resumed the work of the Italians and of Hutton; and the former,
aided by a marvellous power of clear exposition, placed upon an irrefragable basis the truth that natural causes
are competent to account for all events, which can be proved to have occurred, in the course of the secular
changes which have taken place during the deposition of the stratified rocks. The publication of 'The
Principles of Geology,' in 1830, constituted an epoch in geological science. But it also constituted an epoch in
the modern history of the doctrines of evolution, by raising in the mind of every intelligent reader this
question: If natural causation is competent to account for the not-living part of our globe, why should it not
account for the living part?
By keeping this question before the public for some thirty years, Lyell, though the keenest and most
formidable of the opponents of the transmutation theory, as it was formulated by Lamarck, was of the greatest
possible service in facilitating the reception of the sounder doctrines of a later day. And, in like fashion,
another vehement opponent of the transmutation of species, the elder Agassiz, was doomed to help the cause
he hated. Agassiz not only maintained the fact of the progressive advance in organisation of the inhabitants of
the earth at each successive geological epoch, but he insisted upon the analogy of the steps of this progression
with those by which the embryo advances to the adult condition, among the highest forms of each group. In
fact, in endeavoring to support these views he went a good way beyond the limits of any cautious
interpretation of the facts then known.
Darwin
Although little acquainted with biological science, Whewell seems to have taken particular pains with that
part of his work which deals with the history of geological and biological speculation; and several chapters of
his seventeenth and eighteenth books, which comprise the history of physiology, of comparative anatomy and
of the palætiological sciences, vividly reproduce the controversies of the early days of the Victorian epoch.
But here, as in the case of the doctrine of the conservation of energy, the historian of the inductive sciences
has no prophetic insight; not even a suspicion of that which the near future was to bring forth. And those who
still repeat the once favorite objection that Darwin's 'Origin of Species' is nothing but a new version of the
'Philosophie zoologique' will find that, so late as 1844, Whewell had not the slightest suspicion of Darwin's
main theorem, even as a logical possibility. In fact, the publication of that theorem by Darwin and Wallace, in
1859, took all the biological world by surprise. Neither those who were inclined towards the 'progressive
transmutation' or 'development' doctrine, as it was then called, nor those who were opposed to it, had the
slightest suspicion that the tendency to variation in living beings, which all admitted as a matter of fact; the
selective influence of conditions, which no one could deny to be a matter of fact, when his attention was
drawn to the evidence; and the occurrence of great geological changes which also was matter of fact; could be
Darwin found the biological world a more than sufficient field for even his great powers, and left the cosmical
part of the doctrine to others. Not much has been added to the nebular hypothesis, since the time of Laplace,
except that the attempt to show (against that hypothesis) that all nebulæ are star clusters, has been met by the
spectroscopic proof of the gaseous condition of some of them. Moreover, physicists of the present generation
appear now to accept the secular cooling of the earth, which is one of the corollaries of that hypothesis. In
fact, attempts have been made, by the help of deductions from the data of physics, to lay down an approximate
limit to the number of millions of years which have elapsed since the earth was habitable by living beings. If
the conclusions thus reached should stand the test of further investigation, they will undoubtedly be very
valuable. But, whether true or false, they can have no influence upon the doctrine of evolution in its
application to living organisms. The occurrence of successive forms of life upon our globe is an historical
fact, which cannot be disputed; and the relation of these successive forms, as stages of evolution of the same
type, is established in various cases. The biologist has no means of determining the time over which the
process of evolution has extended, but accepts the computation of the physical geologist and the physicist,
whatever that may be.
and philosophy
Evolution as a philosophical doctrine applicable to all phenomena, whether physical or mental, whether
manifested by material atoms or by men in society, has been dealt with systematically in the 'Synthetic
Philosophy' of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Comment on that great undertaking would not be in place here. I mention
it because, so far as I know, it is the first attempt to deal, on scientific principles, with modern scientific facts
and speculations. For the 'Philosophic positive' of M. Comte, with which Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy
is sometimes compared, though it professes a similar object, is unfortunately permeated by a thoroughly
unscientific spirit, and its author had no adequate acquaintance with the physical sciences even of his own
time.
The doctrine of evolution, so far as the present physical cosmos is concerned, postulates the fixity of the rules
of operation of the causes of motion in the material universe. If all kinds of matter are modifications of one
kind, and if all modes of motion are derived from the same energy, the orderly evolution of physical nature
out of one substratum and one energy implies that the rules of action of that energy should be fixed and
definite. In the past history of the universe, back to that point, there can be no room for chance or disorder.
But it is possible to raise the question whether this universe of simplest matter and definitely operating
energy, which forms our hypothetical starting point, may not itself be a product of evolution from a universe
of such matter, in which the manifestations of energy were not definite—in which, for example, our
laws of motion held good for some units and not for others, or for the same units at one time and not at
another—and which would therefore be a real epicurean chance-world?
For myself, I must confess that I find the air of this region of speculation too rarefied for my constitution, and
I am disposed to take refuge in 'ignoramus et ignorabimus.'
Theoretical and experimental investigations have concurred in the establishment of the view that a gas is a
body, the particles of which are in incessant rectilinear motion at high velocities, colliding with one another
and bounding back when they strike the walls of the containing vessel; and, on this theory, the already
ascertained relations of gaseous bodies to heat and pressure have been shown to be deducible from mechanical
principles. Immense improvements have been effected, in the means of exhausting a given space of its
gaseous contents; and experimentation on the phenomena which attend the electric discharge and the action of
radiant heat, within the extremely rarefied media thus produced, has yielded a great number of remarkable
results, some of which have been made familiar to the public by the Gieseler tubes and the radiometer.
Already, these investigations have afforded an unexpected insight into the constitution of matter and its
relations with thermal and electric energy, and they open up a vast field for future inquiry into some of the
deepest problems of physics. Other important steps, in the same direction, have been effected by
investigations into the absorption of radiant heat proceeding from different sources by solid, fluid, and
gaseous bodies. And it is a curious example of the interconnection of the various branches of physical science,
that some of the results thus obtained have proved of great importance in meteorology.
The spectroscope.
The existence of numerous dark lines, constant in their number and position in the various regions of the solar
spectrum, was made out by Fraunhofer in the early part of the present century, but more than forty years
elapsed before their causes were ascertained and their importance recognised. Spectroscopy, which then took
its rise, is probably that employment of physical knowledge, already won, as a means of further acquisition,
which most impresses the imagination. For it has suddenly and immensely enlarged our power of overcoming
the obstacles which almost infinite minuteness on the one hand, and almost infinite distance on the other, have
hitherto opposed to the recognition of the presence and the condition of matter. One eighteen-millionth of a
grain of sodium in the flame of a spirit-lamp may be detected by this instrument; and, at the same time, it
gives trust-worthy indications of the material constitution not only of the sun, but of the farthest of those fixed
stars and nebulæ which afford sufficient light to affect the eye, or the photographic plate, of the inquirer.
Electricity.
The mathematical and experimental elucidation of the phenomena of electricity, and the study of the relations
of this form of energy with chemical and thermal action, had made extensive progress before 1837. But the
determination of the influence of magnetism on light, the discovery of diamagnetism, of the influence of
crystalline structure on magnetism, and the completion of the mathematical theory of electricity, all belong to
It is perhaps this branch of physical science which may claim the palm for its practical fruits, no less than for
the aid which it has furnished to the investigation of other parts of the field of physical science. The idea of
the practicability of establishing a communication between distant points, by means of electricity, could
hardly fail to have simmered in the minds of ingenious men since, well nigh a century ago, experimental proof
was given that electric disturbances could be propagated through a wire twelve thousand feet long. Various
methods of carrying the suggestion into practice had been carried out with some degree of success; but the
system of electric telegraphy, which, at the present time, brings all parts of the civilised world within a few
minutes of one another, originated only about the commencement of the epoch under consideration. In its
influence on the course of human affairs, this invention takes its place beside that of gunpowder, which tended
to abolish the physical inequalities of fighting men; of printing, which tended to destroy the effect of
inequalities in wealth among learning men; of steam transport, which has done the like for travelling men. All
these gifts of science are aids in the process of levelling up; of removing the ignorant and baneful prejudices
of nation against nation, province against province, and class against class; of assuring that social order which
is the foundation of progress, which has redeemed Europe from barbarism, and against which one is glad to
think that those who, in our time, are employing themselves in fanning the embers of ancient wrong, in setting
class against class, and in trying to tear asunder the existing bonds of unity, are undertaking a futile struggle.
The telephone is only second in practical importance to the electric telegraph. Invented, as it were, only the
other day, it has already taken its place as an appliance of daily life. Sixty years ago, the extraction of metals
from their solutions, by the electric current, was simply a highly interesting scientific fact. At the present day,
the galvano-plastic art is a great industry; and, in combination with photography, promises to be of endless
service in the arts. Electric lighting is another great gift of science to civilisation, the practical effects of which
have not yet been fully developed, largely on account of its cost. But those whose memories go back to the
tinder-box period, and recollect the cost of the first lucifer matches, will not despair of the results of the
application of science and ingenuity to the cheap production of anything for which there is a large demand.
The influence of the progress of electrical knowledge and invention upon that of investigation in other fields
of science is highly remarkable. The combination of electrical with mechanical contrivances has produced
instruments by which, not only may extremely small intervals of time be exactly measured, but the varying
rapidity of movements, which take place in such intervals and appear to the ordinary sense instantaneous, is
recorded. The duration of the winking of an eye is a proverbial expression for an instantaneous action; but, by
the help of the revolving cylinder and the electrical marking-apparatus, it is possible to obtain a graphic record
of such an action, in which, if it endures a second, that second shall be subdivided into a hundred, or a
thousand, equal parts, and the state of the action at each hundredth, or thousandth, of a second exhibited. In
fact, these instruments may be said to be time-microscopes. Such appliances have not only effected a
revolution in physiology, by the power of analysing the phenomena of muscular and nervous activity which
they have conferred, but they have furnished new methods of measuring the rate of movement of projectiles to
the artillerist. Again, the microphone, which renders the minutest movements audible, and which enables a
listener to hear the footfall of a fly, has equipped the sense of hearing with the means of entering almost as
deeply into the penetralia of nature, as does the sense of sight.
Astronomy,
The determination of the existence of a new planet, Neptune, far beyond the previously known bounds of the
solar system, by mathematical deduction from the facts of perturbation; and the immediate confirmation of
that determination, in the year 1846, by observers who turned their telescopes into the part of the heavens
indicated as its place, constitute a remarkable testimony of nature to the validity of the principles of the
astronomy of our time. In addition, so many new asteroids have been added to those which were already
known to circulate in the place which theoretically should be occupied by a planet, between Mars and Jupiter,
that their number now amounts to between two and three hundred. I have already alluded to the extension of
our knowledge of the nature of the heavenly bodies by the employment of spectroscopy. It has not only
thrown wonderful light upon the physical and chemical constitution of the sun, fixed stars, and nebulæ, and
comets, but it holds out a prospect of obtaining definite evidence as to the nature of our so-called elementary
bodies.
Biological sciences.
The 'cell theory.'
Turning now to the great steps in that progress which the biological sciences have made since 1837, we are
met, on the threshold of our epoch, with perhaps the greatest of all—namely, the promulgation by
Schwann, in 1839, of the generalisation known as the 'cell theory,' the application and extension of which by a
host of subsequent investigators has revolutionised morphology, development, and physiology. Thanks to the
immense series of labors thus inaugurated, the following fundamental truths have been established.
All complex living bodies consist, at one period of their existence, of an aggregate of minute portions of such
substance, of similar structure, called cells, each cell having its own life independent of the others, though
influenced by them.
All the morphological characters of animals and plants are the results of the mode of multiplication, growth,
and structural metamorphosis of these cells, considered as morphological units.
All the physiological activities of animals and plants—assimilation, secretion, excretion, motion,
generation—are the expression of the activities of the cells considered as physiological units. Each
individual, among the higher animals and plants, is a synthesis of millions of subordinate individualities. Its
individuality, therefore, is that of a 'civitas' in the ancient sense, or that of the Leviathan of Hobbes.
There is no absolute line of demarcation between animals and plants. The intimate structure, and the modes of
change, in the cells of the two are fundamentally the same. Moreover, the higher forms are evolved from
lower, in the course of their development, by analogous processes of differentiation, coalescence, and
reduction in both the vegetable and the animal worlds.
At the present time, the cell theory, in consequence of recent investigations into the structure and
metamorphosis of the 'nucleus,' is undergoing a new development of great significance, which, among other
things, foreshadows the possibility of the establishment of a physical theory of heredity, on a safer foundation
than those which Buffon and Darwin have devised.
During the present epoch, the question, whether living matter can be produced in any other way than by the
physiological activity of other living matter, has been discussed afresh with great vigor; and the problem has
been investigated by experimental methods of a precision and refinement unknown to previous investigators.
The result is that the evidence in favor of abiogenesis has utterly broken down, in every case which has been
properly tested. So far as the lowest and minutest organisms are concerned, it has been proved that they never
make their appearance, if those precautions by which their germs are certainly excluded are taken. And, in
regard to parasites, every case which seemed to make for their generation from the substance of the animal, or
plant, which they infest has been proved to have a totally different significance. Whether not-living matter
may pass, or ever has, under any conditions, passed into living matter, without the agency of pre-existing
living matter, necessarily remains an open question; all that can be said is that it does not undergo this
Morphology.
In the department of anatomy and development, a host of accurate and patient inquirers, aided by novel
methods of preparation, which enable the anatomist to exhaust the details of visible structure and to reproduce
them with geometrical precision, have investigated every important group of living animals and plants, no less
than the fossil relics of former faunæ and floræ. An enormous addition has thus been made to our knowledge,
especially of the lower forms of life, and it may be said that morphology, however inexhaustible in detail, is
complete in its broad features. Classification, which is merely a convenient summary expression of
morphological facts, has undergone a corresponding improvement. The breaks which formerly separated our
groups from one another, as animals from plants, vertebrates from invertebrates, cryptogams from
phanerogams, have either been filled up, or shown to have no theoretical significance. The question of the
position of man, as an animal, has given rise to much disputation, with the result of proving that there is no
anatomical or developmental character by which he is more widely distinguished from the group of animals
most nearly allied to him, than they are from one another. In fact, in this particular, the classification of
Linnæus has been proved to be more in accordance with the facts than those of most of his successors.
Anthropology.
The study of man, as a genus and species of the animal world, conducted with reference to no other
considerations than those which would be admitted by the investigator of any other form of animal life, has
given rise to a special branch of biology, known, as Anthropology, which has grown with great rapidity.
Numerous societies devoted to this portion of science have sprung up, and the energy of its devotees has
produced a copious literature. The physical characters of the various races of men have been studied with a
minuteness and accuracy heretofore unknown; and demonstrative evidence of the existence of human
contemporaries of the extinct animals of the latest geological epoch has been obtained, physical science has
thus been brought into the closest relation with history and with archæology; and the striking investigations
which, during our time, have put beyond doubt the vast antiquity of Babylonian and Egyptian civilisation, are
in perfect harmony with the conclusions of anthropology as to the antiquity of the human species.
Classification is a logical process which consists in putting together those things which are like and keeping
asunder those which are unlike; and a morphological classification, of course, takes notes only of
morphological likeness and unlikeness. So long, therefore, as our morphological knowledge was almost
wholly confined to anatomy, the characters of groups were solely anatomical; but as the phenomena of
embryology were explored, the likeness and unlikeness of individual development had to be taken into
account; and, at present, the study of ancestral evolution introduces a new element of likeness and unlikeness
which is not only eminently deserving of recognition, but must ultimately predominate over all others. A
classification which shall represent the process of ancestral evolution is, in fact, the end which the labors of
the philosophical taxonomist must keep in view. But it is an end which cannot be attained until the progress of
palæontology has given us far more insight than we yet possess, into the historical facts of the case. Much of
the speculative 'phylogeny,' which abounds among my present contemporaries, reminds me very forcibly of
the speculative morphology, unchecked by a knowledge of development, which was rife in my youth. As
hypothesis, suggesting inquiry in this or that direction, it is often extremely useful; but, when the product of
such speculation is placed on a level with those generalisations of morphological truths which are represented
by the definitions of natural groups, it tends to confuse fancy with fact and to create mere confusion. We are
in danger of drifting into a new 'Natur-Philosophie' worse than the old, because there is less excuse for it.
Boyle did great service to science by his 'Sceptical Chemist,' and I am inclined to think that, at the present
day, a 'Sceptical Biologist' might exert an equally beneficent influence.
Modern physiology sets forth as its chief ends: Firstly, the ascertainment of the facts and conditions of
cell-life in general. Secondly, in composite organisms, the analysis of the functions of organs into those of the
cells of which they are composed. Thirdly, the explication of the processes by which this local cell-life is
directly, or indirectly, controlled and brought into relation with the life of the rest of the cells which compose
the organism. Fourthly, the investigation of the phenomena of life in general, on the assumption that the
physical and chemical processes which take place in the living body are of the same order as those which take
place out of it; and that whatever energy is exerted in producing such phenomena is derived from the common
stock of energy in the universe. In the fifth place, modern physiology investigates the relation between
physical and psychical phenomena, on the assumption that molecular changes in definite portions of nervous
matter stand in the relation of necessary antecedents to definite mental states and operations. The work which
has been done in each of the directions here indicated is vast, and the accumulation of solid knowledge, which
has been effected, is correspondingly great. For the first time in the history of science, physiologists are now
in the position to say that they have arrived at clear and distinct, though by no means complete, conceptions of
the manner in which the great functions of assimilation, respiration, secretion, distribution of nutriment,
removal of waste products, motion, sensation, and reproduction are performed; while the operation of the
nervous system, as a regulative apparatus, which influences the origination and the transmission of
manifestations of activity, either within itself or in other organs, has been largely elucidated.
Scientific exploration.
An immense extension has been effected in our knowledge of the distribution of plants and animals; and the
elucidation of the causes which have brought about that distribution has been greatly advanced. The
establishment of meteorological observations by all civilised nations, has furnished a solid foundation to
climatology; while a growing sense of the importance of the influence of the 'struggle for existence' affords a
wholesome check to the tendency to overrate the influence of climate on distribution. Expeditions, such as
that of the Challenger,' equipped, not for geographical exploration and discovery, but for the purpose of
throwing light on problems of physical and biological science, have been sent out by our own and other
Governments, and have obtained stores of information of the greatest value. For the first time, we are in
possession of something like precise knowledge of the physical features of the deep seas, and of the living
population of the floor of the ocean. The careful and exhaustive study of the phenomena presented by the
accumulations of snow and ice, in polar and mountainous regions, which has taken place in our time, has not
only revealed to the geologist an agent of denudation and transport, which has slowly and quietly produced
effects, formerly confidently referred to diluvial catastrophes, but it has suggested new methods of accounting
for various puzzling facts of distribution.
Palæontology.
Palæontology, which treats of the extinct forms of life and their succession and distribution upon our globe, a
branch of science which could hardly be said to exist a century ago, has undergone a wonderful development
in our epoch. In some groups of animals and plants, the extinct representatives, already known, are more
numerous and important than the living. There can be no doubt that the existing Fauna and Flora is but the last
term of a long series of equally numerous contemporary species, which have succeeded one another, by the
slow and gradual substitution of species for species, in the vast interval of time which has elapsed between the
deposition of the earliest fossiliferous strata and the present day. There is no reasonable ground for believing
that the oldest remains yet obtained carry us even near the beginnings of life. The impressive warnings of
Lyell against hasty speculations, based upon negative evidence, have been fully justified; time after time,
highly organised types have been discovered in formations of an age in which the existence of such forms of
life had been confidently declared to be impossible. The western territories of the United States alone have
yielded a world of extinct animal forms, undreamed of fifty years ago. And, wherever sufficiently numerous
series of the remains of any given group, which has endured for a long space of time, are carefully examined,
their morphological relations are never in discordance with the requirements of the doctrine of evolution, and
often afford convincing evidence of it. At the same time, it has been shown that certain forms persist with
very little change, from the oldest to the newest fossiliferous formations; and thus show that progressive
development is a contingent, and not a necessary result, of the nature of living matter.
Geology.
Geology is, as it were, the biology of our planet as a whole. In so far as it comprises the surface configuration
and the inner structure of the earth, it answers to morphology; in so far as it studies changes of condition and
their causes, it corresponds with physiology; in so far as it deals with the causes which have effected the
progress of the earth from its earliest to its present state, it forms part of the general doctrine of evolution. An
interesting contrast between the geology of the present day and that of half a century ago, is presented by the
complete emancipation of the modern geologist from the controlling and perverting influence of theology,
all-powerful at the earlier date. As the geologist of my young days wrote, he had one eye upon fact, and the
other on Genesis; at present, he wisely keeps both eyes on fact, and ignores the pentateuchal mythology
An incalculable benefit has accrued to geological science from the accurate and detailed surveys, which have
now been executed by skilled geologists employed by the Governments of all parts of the civilised world. In
geology, the study of large maps is as important as it is said to be in politics; and sections, on a true scale, are
even more important, in so far as they are essential to the apprehension of the extraordinary insignificance of
geological perturbations in relation to the whole mass of our planet. It should never be forgotten that what we
call 'catastrophes,' are, in relation to the earth, changes, the equivalents of which would be well represented by
the development of a few pimples, or the scratch of a pin, on a man's head. Vast regions of the earth's surface
remain geologically unknown; but the area already fairly explored is many times greater than it was in 1837;
and, in many parts of Europe and the United States, the structure of the superficial crust of the earth has been
investigated with great minuteness.
The parallel between Biology and Geology, which I have drawn, is further illustrated by the modern growth of
that branch of the science known as Petrology, which answers to Histology, and has made the microscope as
essential an instrument to the geological as to the biological investigator.
The evidence of the importance of causes now in operation has been wonderfully enlarged by the study of
glacial phenomena; by that of earthquakes and volcanoes; and by that of the efficacy of heat and cold, wind,
rain, and rivers as agents of denudation and transport. On the other hand, the exploration of coral reefs and of
the deposits now taking place at the bottom of the great oceans, has proved that, in animal and plant life, we
have agents of reconstruction of a potency hitherto unsuspected.
There is no study better fitted than that of geology to impress upon men of general culture that conviction of
the unbroken sequence of the order of natural phenomena, throughout the duration of the universe, which is
the great, and perhaps the most important, effect of the increase of natural knowledge.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] There are excellent remarks to the same effect in Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen, Theil II. Abth. ii p.
407, and in Eucken's Die Methode der Aristotelischen, Forschung, pp. 136 et seq.
[B] Fresnel, after a brilliant career of discovery in some of the most difficult regions of physico-mathematical
science, died at thirty-nine years of age. The following passage of a letter from him to Young (written in
November 1824), quoted by Whewell, so aptly illustrates the spirit which animates the scientific inquirer that
I may cite it:
'For a long time that sensibility, or that vanity, which people call love of glory is munch blunted in me. I labor
much less to catch the suffrages of the public than to obtain an inward approval which has always been the
mental reward of my efforts. Without doubt I have often wanted the spur of vanity to excite me to pursue my
researches in moments of disgust and discouragement. But all the compliments which I have received from
FOOTNOTES: 28
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Advance Of Science In The Last Half-Century, by T.H. Huxley, F.R.S..
M.M. Arago, De Laplace, or Biot, never gave me so much pleasure as the discovery of a theoretical truth or
the confirmation of a calculation by experiment.'
[C] 'Mémorable exemple de l'impuissance des recherches collectives appliquées à la découverte des vérités
nouvelles!' says one of the most distinguished of living French savants of the corporate chemical work of the
old Académie des Sciences. (See Berthelot, Science et Philosophie, p. 201.)
[D] I am particularly indebted to my friend and colleague Professor Rücker, F.R.S., for the many acute
criticisms and suggestions on my remarks respecting the ultimate problems of physics, with which he has
favored me, and by which I have greatly profited.
[E] I am aware that this proposition may be challenged. It may be said, for example, that, on the hypothesis of
Boscovich, matter has no extension, being reduced to mathematical points serving as centres of 'forces.' But as
the 'forces' of the various centres are conceived to limit one another's action in such a manner that an area
around each centre has an individuality of its own extension comes back in the form of that area. Again, a
very eminent mathematician and physicist—the late Clerk Maxwell—has declared that
impenetrability is not essential to our notions of matter, and that two atoms may conceivably occupy the same
space. I am loth to dispute any dictum of a philosopher as remarkable for the subtlety of his intellect as for his
vast knowledge; but the assertion that one and the same point or area of space can have different (conceivably
opposite) attributes appears to me to violate the principle of contradiction, which is the foundation not only of
physical science, but of logic in general. It means that A can be not-A.
[F] 'Molecule' would be the more appropriate name for such a particle. Unfortunately, chemists employ this
term in a special sense, as a name for an aggregation of their smallest particles, for which they retain the
designation of 'atoms.'
[G] 'At present more organic analyses are made in a single day than were accomplished before Liebig's time
in a whole year.'—Hofmann, Faraday Lecture, p. 46.
[H] In the preface to his Mécanique Chimique M. Berthelot declares his object to be 'ramener la chimie tout
entirère ... aux mêmes principes mécaniques qui régissent déjà les diverses branches de la physique.'
[I] This is the more curious, as Ampère's hypothesis that vibrations of molecules, causing and caused by
vibrations of the ether, constitute heat, is discussed. See vol. ii. p. 587, 2nd ed. In the Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences, 2nd ed., 1847, p. 239, Whewell remarks, à propos of Bacon's definition of heat, 'that it is
an expansive, restrained motion, modified in certain ways, and exerted in the smaller particles of the body;'
that 'although the exact nature of heat is still an obscure and controverted matter, the science of heat now
consists of many important truths; and that to none of these truths is there any approximation in Bacon's
essay.' In point of fact, Bacon's statement, however much open to criticism, does contain a distinct
approximation to the most important of all the truths respecting heat which had been discovered when
Whewell wrote.
[J] Perhaps I ought rather to say Button's axiom. For that great naturalist and writer embodied the principles of
sound geology in a pithy phrase of the Théoris de la Terre: 'Pour juger de ce qui est arrivé, et même de ce qui
arrivera, nous n'avons qu'à examiner ce qui arrive.'
FOOTNOTES: 29
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